The partnership plans to rebrand, renovate and enlarge the 367,000-square-foot complex that includes the city’s tallest building, renaming it Del Amo Crossing, said Stephen Muller, a principal at the Orange County-based The Muller Co.

The nearly 50-year-old property — which includes a 12-story office tower that boasts spectacular South Bay views — will be repositioned as a high-end, mixed-use office and retail complex. A smaller five-story tower will be converted into leased medical offices.

A 42,000-square-foot health club and 10,000-square-foot restaurant atop two levels of subterranean parking will replace a surface parking lot on the northeast side of the 8-acre property as part of the first phase of redevelopment.

And the entire property will receive an initial $35 million upgrade, pumping new life into a complex that has suffered from neglect and deferred maintenance under its current ownership. It was last remodeled in 1998.

Hallways, lobbies and virtually the entire property will receive a sleek, retro do-over in line with its 1960s origins.

“We’re really going to give it that ‘Mad Men’ look, Muller said, referring to the hit cable show that celebrated the styles and fashion of the era.

“It has been fun because when we went back and looked at the original plans, that’s kind of what the building looked like when it was first built,” he added. “The Del Amo Financial Center acquisition marks a rare opportunity to reinvent what was once one of the area’s most prestigious business complexes.”

The redevelopment eventually could include repositioning 800 square feet of potential real estate space along Hawthorne Boulevard that the investment group believes is being underused.

But for now, the artificial lakes that sit drained and empty along that frontage will be filled in with drought-tolerant landscaping.

The complex sale to Muller and GreenOak took a marathon 15 months to accomplish and finally closed Monday, Muller said.

“The city and I are very excited that the (Del Amo Financial Center) sale has finally consummated,” Mayor Pat Furey said in a statement.

Tenants from the smaller office building will be moved into the larger tower so the extensive renovation and conversion into medical offices may proceed. The relocation of the tenants and a pending lease of an entire floor of the tower means that property will be about 80 percent occupied, Muller said.

“With two major hospitals in the marketplace, there’s an additional need for good, well-built medical offices,” said Chris Sinfield, senior vice president with Cushman & Wakefield, who along with executive director Leslie Mayer was the co-broker.

“The central Torrance market is insulated — there’s not a whole lot of product,” Sinfield added. “We’ve seen a lot of demand and the marketplace will continue to thrive on that.”

In particular, the larger spaces available in the five-story building are in short supply in the South Bay, he said.

A separate ownership group that has sought to redevelop a 5-acre tract on the site will retain those rights, although the city has rejected building an assisted living center on the site on several occasions in the past few years.

The property sits across from Del Amo Fashion Center, which is undergoing a major transformation and is near Pacific Center, another Hawthorne Boulevard office building of comparable size that was sold last month.

The eight-story Pacific Center, which includes the offices of the Daily Breeze, was sold for $68.5 million by Bixby Land Co.

Bixby purchased the 300,00-square-foot building in mid-2012 for $52 million, spent $6 million on renovations, increased occupancy from 63 percent to 80 percent and then flipped it to Dallas real estate firm Stream Realty Partners.

Nick Green is the longtime soccer columnist for the Southern California Newspaper Group and covers Torrance, Lomita and the craft beer industry for the Daily Breeze. He also blogs about soccer at www.insidesocal.com/soccer, the local craft beer scene at www.insidesocal.com/beer and the South Bay at blogs.dailybreeze.com/southbay/. The native of England lives in Old Torrance with his wife and two cats.

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